April reading round up

I seem to have been doing a bit more reading than usual the past couple of months , but not so much blogging. Many of the books I've read have been garnered on quick sweeps in my local library; some are titles I've bought to read for the book club I belong to, others just acquired on a whim, such as Bee Wilson's This Is Not A Diet Book. I picked this up at my local university bookshop and read it that evening. It 's an interesting take on how to have a more rational approach to food and feeding ourselves as human beings - not depending on fast food and takeaways, but creating something nourishing from scratch, which is something I've tried to do for a very long time. There are a few useful recipes within and simple guidelines as to how to eat well.
 For a bit of light relief, I read a couple of titles by Veronica Henry, How to Find Love in a Bookshop, and The Beach Hut Next Door. Both are easy stories, with enough about the characters for me to care for them and to want to find out what happens to them.

Fredrick Backman's " A man called Ove" is a beautifully told story about a grumpy old man called Ove, who lives in a small Swedish town. Ove makes several, fortunately unsuccessful attempts to take his own life. Ove's life story is revealed slowly, over the course of the book: his childhood, his meeting with his wife Sonja and her childhood in an isolated house. This book gives a picture of modern Swedish life in all its complexity, including the bureaucracy revealed when an old friend in need of care is being hustled off into a care home, despite his wife's pleadings against this action. Ove's daily inspections of his neighbourhood bring him into contact with the many people in the locality, including recent arrivals Parvenah and her husband. Parvenah is Iranian and forms a close bond with Ove, He even teaches her to drive. This story is a complete contrast to the Scandi-noir thrillers which have been popular for some time.
Having recently watched the final of University Challenge, which I've been watching since its Bamber Gascoigne days, I picked up Jeremy Paxman's A Life in Questions ,(a sort of autobiography,) in the library and read it fairly quickly. It does give a picture of his family background and working life, but little of his personal, private life. Nevertheless, I found it an interesting read, despite its slightly limited scope on his life.
I don't know how, over a long reading life I haven't read anything by Penelope Fitzgerald. however I have now made a start with her last novel, The Blue Flower, a story about the love of Freidrich (Fritz) von Hardenberg for Sophie von Kuhn, who was only 12 when they first met. Von Hardenberg went on to write poetry and philosophy under the name Novalis. Set during the 18th century, on reading it I became totally absorbed into the life of the characters: she makes the 18th century seem very real and immediate and describes beautifully Fritz's family's total bemusement at his falling in love with an apparently rather ordinary, plain young girl, who is also not of his class in society. It is good to find a new to me author who has a solid body of work to keep me reading.
Note: there is more about Penelope Fitzgerald and her novel The Bookshop over on Vulpes Libris blog.

Reading and looking

Bee Wilson's book Consider the Fork was a fascinating look at the history of cooking and eating through the techniques and equipment used to provide meals, not the food itself, although there are many books which cover that subject.With chapters on Pots and pans, Fire, Grind ( which  briefly tells the history of how humans have ground grain to make bread from earliest times). Although this book doesn't go into the minutest detail, it gives a through introduction of how our cooking and eating techniques have changed through the ages, with a brief mention of how some eating techniques have changed us as humans. There is also an excellent bibliography and list of further reading for those of us with a deeper interest in food history in all its ramifications.
 As my book club had booked to hear Alexander McCall Smith when he came to Winchester Guildhall last Thursday, I quickly re-read the title story in the Sunday Philosophy Club series to remind myself of his writing. He is as entertaining a speaker as he is a writer, and was well worth the short trip up to Winchester, and has encouraged me to read some of his other series set in Edinburgh, as well as trying to catch up with Mma Ramotswe and her detective agency.
 Another fairly quick read was Libby Purves Holy Smoke, a memoir of her education as a Catholic girl growing up in a variety of places , following her father in his career as a diplomat. I picked this up at my local library, out of interest, as I'm a fairly regular reader of her Times column, and have also read most of her other books, both fiction and non-fiction. I must say her education at Catholic convent schools, mostly, was completely different to mine., even though I also spent time abroad with my parents ( father a mining engineer) and went to boarding school in England while parents worked abroad, West Africa in their case.

 A friend reminded me the other day that there is an exhibition of the work of Eric Meadus, a local artist, in Southampton City Art gallery , until 22nd March. Many of he scenes he painted are only about a mile away from where I live, and it was interesting to see his vision of his home city. There is a good write-up of Eric Meadus' work here, and some biographical information here.I personally love the colours he uses , even some of the darker ones, and think his drawing is beautiful. I agree that not all his work is of the same standard, but it is all worth looking at and studying. I'll probably  try and visit this exhibition again, as I only concentrated on part of it at this visit.